FORD Truck Owners Demand Quality, DECKED Delivers

January 22, 2016

If there were ever one particular group of truck owners out there that are, well, particular, about their trucks, it’s the FORD owner. That is not to say that the GMC, RAM, or Chevy guys are asleep at the wheel or that the Toyota or Nissan tribes are any less passionate (I mean honestly most us are more intimate with our trucks than our wives), but over the past four decades, the F-Series truck has been the most popular with a rabid group of followers who aren’t afraid to tell you what they think.

In the design and manufacture of DECKED, we’ve created a product that the FORD guy loves. We’ve got proof and we’ve posted below a few screenshots of reviews from the shopping cart side of our website so you can see what the FORD tribe has to say.

The genesis of this people pleasing product called DECKED occurred somewhere on a road trip on which one of our founders had spent another night nestled in the back of his truck on some sliding plywood toolboxes he had fashioned from the lumberyard/hardware store like so many have done before. It had come time to replace them and he thought, why not make a system whereby I could make it easier for people to build these? The original idea of templates and hardware kits soon evolved into a full scale project to replace the DIY arts and crafts version of sliding drawer toolboxes and design and build an engineered solution which would be durable, weatherproof, and not require drilling holes in or otherwise messing with the truck’s bed. It should have sliding drawers for organized storage and a deck which had the same payload as his 1/2 ton FORD.

The quest for materials and engineering ensued and time after time, a material called High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) rose to the fore. Excelling in strength-to-weight ratio, incredibly moldable, chemically resistant, and able to withstand harsh environments led the DECKED engineers to unanimously vote HDPE.

To attain the high payload rating and ensure a commiserate level of torsional strength for carrying the gamut of types of loads, a substructure was necessary. Thus, with CAD data and hours of study, a galvanized steel frame was designed that would be co-molded inside of the deck itself. This was a new technique in molding and the quest to find the right partner to do such molding led DECKED to the best injection molding plant in the world: One which happened to be right here in the USA.

A significant aspect of the development focused on ease of assembly and installation in the bed of pickup trucks and the thought that eventually DECKED would also be made for vans, therefore our engineers created a modular system. This meant that once assembled using basic hand tools and a selection of fully considered hardware, the DECKED system would be easy to remove as it essentially comes apart into five main pieces: the two drawers, two deck halves, and the skid plate ruler in about 15-20 minutes.

Going after the biggest vehicle market in the United States, the full size pickup truck with 5’6″ and 6’6″ beds, was an ambitious move. As noted above, these guys are picky about their vehicles. However, a pickup truck is a compromise and every storage and organization solution is also a compromise. With a lateral or cross over toolbox, the ergonomics are such that one has to either stand on his tip toes to barely be able to reach inside, or get on a knee and crawl into the back of the truck. With a tonneau cover, the load is kept dry and secure, however tools, gear, and other items are frequently making their way to the head of the truck bed and again one must crawl inside. Now sliding drawers, that is a good idea! And with this design the truck guy can still use his truck as well, a truck.

DECKED drawers were designed to carry a 200 lb per drawer payload and to make them glide like butter, we went ballistic seeking out the right wheel. The result was a beefy wheel with a urethane “tire” on the rolling surface featuring 13 ball sealed bearings on each side.

After over two years of selling DECKED, it is safe to say that we’ve met the muster of the FORD customer. As well as the GMC, RAM, Chevy, Toyota, and yes, even Nissan, owner. So have a look around, read the reviews and check out the forums. We feel pretty happy to have made something that has made so many guys’ and gals’ lives easier.